Posts Tagged ‘Crime’

Police are looking for a group of men in connection with a string of crimes against wireless phone stores in Brooklyn over the last three months. One robbery resulted in the injury of a store employee. Altogether, 8 locations were hit for a total of 52 stolen phones and one stolen laptop, police say.

Click below for a map of locations hit, and a description of the crimes.(more…)

Crime is on the rise in the Red Hook and Carroll Gardens neighborhoods. A string of assaults, robberies, and grand larcenies plagued the area over the past two weeks, causing cops in the 76th precinct to beef up patrols and initiate a more aggressive strategy to combat crime. Below is a map illustrating some of the problems this Brooklyn community is facing.

Reporting a crime story with google map allows to have the big picture of it. It is easier to understand what happened where, and also helpful to circumscribe the field of research for the reporter.

With the map, we see that in this case, the shooting, the hospital where the first victim was transported and the place of the arrest are very close to each other. Thus, the field of research was not too wide for the reporter.

In tracking this week’s crime with a map, the majority of assaults, thefts and robberies were concentrated in a densely populated section of Fort Greene, several of which targeted strap hangars emerging from the subway.

The spate of criminal activity here is nothing new to this area and comes less than a month after the 88th Precinct acknowledged the trend at its community council meeting. The precinct has pledged to disperse more cops on the ground in response.

The crime map is curated from complainant reports of the 88th Precinct’s crime blotter, which gets published each week by The Local, a NYTimes.com hyperlocal blog covering Fort Greene and Clinton Hill. The descriptions were written by esteemed crime reporter An Phung.

Life in New York City offers a long list of annoyances to the city dweller. Metro fare hikes, disoriented tourists who block the flow of city streets, and the recent bed bug scare are some of the issues the CUNY J-school Class of 2011 notes as most cumbersome.

But as the irritating aspects of life in this metropolis are discussed, a popular urban topic is generally left out: crime and safety.

So I set out to find out if my classmates at J-School worry about crime and if they feel safe in their neighborhoods.

Of the 12 students who responded to the online survey about safety and crime in their borough, 58% were female and 42% were male.

Only three of the five NYC boroughs were represented, with 67% living in Manhattan, 25% in Queens, and 8% in Brooklyn.

Asked whether they feel safe walking alone in their neighborhood late at night (after 10 p.m.), 50% said they “always” feel safe, and 50% said they feel safe “most of the time.” No one checked the “sometimes,” “rarely”, or “never” options.

When asked if they knew someone who has been a victim of crime in the borough they (respondents) live, 25% said “yes.” However, 100% said they have never been a victim of crime in their borough, which may explain why none reported feeling at risk for crime there.

After all reported feeling safe in their borough, I was not surprised to learn that most do not keep track of crime in their borough: 75%.

Perhaps the New York Police Department’s report of the annual decrease in crime levels over the past 20 years has helped?